January 20, 2008
Today was our moral moon landing. Those of us alive when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon understood we were witnessing a transcendent moment, not just for Americans, but for all mankind. We were finally viewing the earth from a silent, solemn distance, seeing it whole, without artificial divisions and borders. Of course there were borders, and armies, and less commendable rockets than the Saturn V threatening the earth’s destruction, and ordinary people carelessly polluting the very atmosphere to which they owed their existence, of which the moon had none.
For this was a technical achievement. It was a moment of which people had always dreamed, or not dared to dream, since our oldest ancestors first peered at the night sky. And those of us watching still could not believe, even as Mr. Armstrong was speaking his famous words. There had never been in the history of the world such an indisputable example of mankind’s greatness.
But not his goodness. For morally we remained a disappointing species. The history of humanity is a story of progress. But technical progress. From stone to iron to bronze to agriculture to industry to information, nearly all our achievements have been achievements in technology. If we look at our ancestors and ask what separates us from them, we could say that we are clothed in the raiments of civilization. We live longer more complicated lived. We talk with people continents away, we interact with machines. We walk on the moon and disentangle DNA. We are greater, by far.
But are we better?
Today we can say: Yes, we are.
Jan 20, 2009
Jan 12, 2009
ADDICTED TO OXYGEN
My name is Mark, and I have a disease. I’ve never talked about it before, let alone spoken in public to strangers. I’m grateful for this opportunity to come forward, and for your unconditional support.
It started a long time ago, as far back as I can recall. My insatiable craving to breathe. I was a shy, insecure kid. I had discipline problems in school. I didn’t fit in with the normal crowd. My parents divorced when I was five. My mother married an alcoholic who beat me and once, in the bathroom of a state park.... Do I have to go into all of this?
Anyway, I’m sure most of you have similar stories. Of course I knew oxygen was dangerous. That is easily catches fire. That it prematurely ages you. But I was young and thought I would live forever. I’d seen old people in rest homes shriveled like prunes due to their lifelong addiction. But like all addicts, I thought I could handle it.
Peer pressure of course played a big role. In high school all the popular kids were doing it. And there was this one girl I liked who was a heavy breather. So I got hooked. At first I just gasped. But then I started panting. One night the electricity went out and when I lit a candle my hair caught fire. I could have died.
My grades suffered. I dropped out of school. I fought with my mom and cut off everyone who didn’t share my habit. But nothing matter in my life but oxygen. My whole day revolved around breathing. I had become useless to the world.
But man, it was such a rush! I’d never felt anything like it before! All that fresh air just overpowers you with a sense of euphoria. You think you can do anything. Of course you don’t consider the consequences. I’ve even read oxygen changes your brain, short circuits the parts responsible for decision making.
Oxygen made me do things I’m ashamed to admit. Things I would never do if it weren’t for my addiction. When my mom took me to visit my grandmother in intensive care I waited until no one was looking and put her respirator mask over my nose. My mom was touched that I was going to visit her every day, but it was only for the oxygen.
Soon I began stealing to support my habit. I forged prescriptions to get bottles from medical supply companies. One day my mom discovered my stash in the back of my closet and kicked me out.
I started living on the streets. I know I probably look fifty years old. I’m only twenty-three. That’s what oxygen does to you. But people like us, we just keep falling until we hit bottom. For me the moment of truth came when I got some ozone by mistake. I woke up in the hospital.
Now that I know I’m genetically disposed to my addiction I understand I’m not a weak or a bad person. It was the oxygen talking. Your support today has given me the courage to conquer this dreadful chemical. I’m proud to say I have now been oxygen free for, let’s see, three minutes and fifteen sec
It started a long time ago, as far back as I can recall. My insatiable craving to breathe. I was a shy, insecure kid. I had discipline problems in school. I didn’t fit in with the normal crowd. My parents divorced when I was five. My mother married an alcoholic who beat me and once, in the bathroom of a state park.... Do I have to go into all of this?
Anyway, I’m sure most of you have similar stories. Of course I knew oxygen was dangerous. That is easily catches fire. That it prematurely ages you. But I was young and thought I would live forever. I’d seen old people in rest homes shriveled like prunes due to their lifelong addiction. But like all addicts, I thought I could handle it.
Peer pressure of course played a big role. In high school all the popular kids were doing it. And there was this one girl I liked who was a heavy breather. So I got hooked. At first I just gasped. But then I started panting. One night the electricity went out and when I lit a candle my hair caught fire. I could have died.
My grades suffered. I dropped out of school. I fought with my mom and cut off everyone who didn’t share my habit. But nothing matter in my life but oxygen. My whole day revolved around breathing. I had become useless to the world.
But man, it was such a rush! I’d never felt anything like it before! All that fresh air just overpowers you with a sense of euphoria. You think you can do anything. Of course you don’t consider the consequences. I’ve even read oxygen changes your brain, short circuits the parts responsible for decision making.
Oxygen made me do things I’m ashamed to admit. Things I would never do if it weren’t for my addiction. When my mom took me to visit my grandmother in intensive care I waited until no one was looking and put her respirator mask over my nose. My mom was touched that I was going to visit her every day, but it was only for the oxygen.
Soon I began stealing to support my habit. I forged prescriptions to get bottles from medical supply companies. One day my mom discovered my stash in the back of my closet and kicked me out.
I started living on the streets. I know I probably look fifty years old. I’m only twenty-three. That’s what oxygen does to you. But people like us, we just keep falling until we hit bottom. For me the moment of truth came when I got some ozone by mistake. I woke up in the hospital.
Now that I know I’m genetically disposed to my addiction I understand I’m not a weak or a bad person. It was the oxygen talking. Your support today has given me the courage to conquer this dreadful chemical. I’m proud to say I have now been oxygen free for, let’s see, three minutes and fifteen sec
Jan 4, 2009
DYING AS A FULL-TIME JOB
When I was five I was terrified after hearing about some elderly relative who died in his sleep. Peaceful it might have been, but ontologically distressing. I didn’t want to die in my sleep at any age. How would I know I was dead?
Now, however, death has become a curriculum, like getting a Bachelor’s degree. Four years of exams and all your family’s savings. I learned this the hard way after I was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a deadly bone marrow disease. But could I gasp and complain on my own comfortable bed like Ivan Ilych? No. There were IV’s and X-rays and interminable doctors’ appointments, white walls and cold corridors, long needles and chalky pills. After only a couple weeks I was exhausted. Not so much from the illness as from the effort to treat it.
Characters in literature died quickly, as did most real people before the advent of modern medicine. Even the tiresome deathbed scenes in Victorian novels only last a few pages. But I was facing long chapters before the end of my tale. No chance of dying in my sleep, because I couldn’t sleep. I recalled Clavdia Chauchat in The Magic Mountain. There was a character who took years to die. But she hardly had to work at it. Get her temperature taken a few times a day, an X-ray here and there. And she was hanging out in the Swiss Alps. I was in Cleveland with a view of the helipad.
What happened to the rest cure? To mineral springs and grand hotels with casinos where invalids in tuxedos could smoke cigars and play roulette while waiting for the reaper to grab them like some spectral croupier?
Had this then become the morbid conclusion to the American work ethic, that we had to work hard even to die? After a while I concluded the responsible response to this laborious and inefficient process was to survive it. Death was simply taking too much of my time.
Now, however, death has become a curriculum, like getting a Bachelor’s degree. Four years of exams and all your family’s savings. I learned this the hard way after I was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a deadly bone marrow disease. But could I gasp and complain on my own comfortable bed like Ivan Ilych? No. There were IV’s and X-rays and interminable doctors’ appointments, white walls and cold corridors, long needles and chalky pills. After only a couple weeks I was exhausted. Not so much from the illness as from the effort to treat it.
Characters in literature died quickly, as did most real people before the advent of modern medicine. Even the tiresome deathbed scenes in Victorian novels only last a few pages. But I was facing long chapters before the end of my tale. No chance of dying in my sleep, because I couldn’t sleep. I recalled Clavdia Chauchat in The Magic Mountain. There was a character who took years to die. But she hardly had to work at it. Get her temperature taken a few times a day, an X-ray here and there. And she was hanging out in the Swiss Alps. I was in Cleveland with a view of the helipad.
What happened to the rest cure? To mineral springs and grand hotels with casinos where invalids in tuxedos could smoke cigars and play roulette while waiting for the reaper to grab them like some spectral croupier?
Had this then become the morbid conclusion to the American work ethic, that we had to work hard even to die? After a while I concluded the responsible response to this laborious and inefficient process was to survive it. Death was simply taking too much of my time.
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